Greetings! A few years ago I wrote an open letter to ninth graders about college readiness, trying to provide beginning high school students with a college professor’s perspective on what being ready for college really means (see “An Open Letter to Ninth Graders” in the January–February 2009 issue of Academe). As it turns out, “being […] … learn more→

Travel broadens the mind. That’s what we tell our students when we encourage them to engage with international internships and study abroad. The ability to navigate a range of social, cultural and intellectual settings will be of great importance, so you ought to get some practice. The same could perhaps also apply to middle-aged professors […] … learn more→

So now we’re looking at a typical “nontraditional” community college student, who has come to campus for the exact reason the community paid for the campus: real job training. Gert is about done. She has no idea why she needs calculus and art history and chemistry to be a massage therapist…she is having big-time trouble […] … learn more→

If you are a 16-year-old today, once you have taken GCSEs you will have a number of possible routes open to you. If you have achieved a range of “good” GCSEs (grades A*-C) you can probably opt to take A-Levels. If you have not achieved the necessary number of high grades, you can progress to […] … learn more→

Analysing Chinese student mobility patterns over the past two decades reveals impressive statistics. Currently, Chinese students are the most mobile students in higher education. Twenty per cent of all international students, or every tenth international higher education student, originates from China. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, 459,000 Chinese students studied abroad last year, […] … learn more→

My essay in the May/June 2016 online version of Academe, “What Shakespeare Says about Sending Our Children Off to College,” is meant to serve two purposes. First, and most obviously, it is meant to be a reflection on the odd event of the college send-off, on Shakespeare’s ongoing relevance in modern life, and on Shakespeare’s theory […] … learn more→

Most adults know that taking care of yourself offers many benefits, not just for your well-being, but also for your family and even your education and career. For most adults, “taking care of yourself” refers to getting plenty of exercise and eating some vegetables instead of fast food every day. What they fail to realize […] … learn more→

What’s the best way to raise your child? It’s a question that has provoked the publication of numerous books, and seen authors race to coin the next quirky name for a new style of parenting. And it turns out there are many styles. To date, some of the best known include: Tiger parents, who are […] … learn more→

Jobs in the healthcare sector have always skewed toward the most lucrative end of the spectrum. To land those jobs, though, students have had to sacrifice massive amounts of time and money to go to medical school and other paths toward professional certification. In other words, becoming a doctor can be a way to a […] … learn more→

So I’m looking at a very thinly veiled fiction book, College Leadership Crisis: The Phillip Dolly Affair, which details some of the truths of community college in America today. Last time around I took a small glimpse inside the Poo Bah’s mind, and found it filled with edu-speak gobbledygook, along with whining about not getting […] … learn more→